1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reaction device and electronic equipment which house a reactor to cause a reaction of a reactant.
2. Description of Related Art
In a technical field of a chemical reaction, there is known a chemical reaction apparatus to generate desired reactive material by causing a chemical reaction with a catalyst put inside a flow path which is temperature-managed by an electric heater, and an electric power generator to generate electric power by causing above chemical reaction. Such chemical reaction apparatus includes, for example, a reformer to produce a gas composed mostly of hydrogen from organic compound including a hydrogen atom, and a fuel cell to generate electric power from hydrogen and oxygen.
Here, a heat quantity necessary for continuing the desired chemical reaction is supplied by heat generation with electric power supply to a resistance heating element, combustion heat of a catalyst combustion reaction, and so on. In order to reduce heat dissipation from a reaction area to an ambient environment, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-156011 discloses a method includes: housing the reformer as a high temperature area in an inner shell of a container; further housing the inner shell in an outer shell of the container; and maintaining a pressure in a spacer layer arranged between the inner shell and the outer shell lower than a normal atmospheric pressure (1 atm).
The above-described chemical reaction apparatus has been investigated for accelerating a temperature rise to shorten a starting time of the apparatus. For this purpose, it is conceivable to reduce a pressure around the reaction area, for example, so that the pressure equals to or is less than 10 Pa to insulate the reaction area to which the heat quantity is supplied. In this case, a stress caused by a pressure difference between a pressure of a reaction gas outside a wall which defines the above-described reaction area and the decreased pressure surrounding the reaction area increases. Moreover, accelerating a temperature rise makes it easier to cause a temperature distribution in the wall which defines the reaction area so that the stress caused by a heat strain increases.
Since the stress added to the wall increases when a temperature rise is accelerated, there is a limit on accelerating a temperature rise when a wall thickness is uniform. On the other hand, if the wall thickness is reduced, a heat capacity of the reaction area can be reduced so that a temperature rise can be further accelerated. However, as described above, there is a limit on reducing the wall thickness because the stress added to the wall increases when a temperature rises.